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OPINION: Does Japan Need Assistance?
By Rajib ShawTOKYO, March 25, Kyodo

Japan is known not only for its experience of devastating disasters, but also for innovations in disaster riskreduction. Back in 1990, when the United Nations started its first International Decade of Natural Disaster
Reduction (1990-1999), Japan was one of the strongest supporters.
In 1994, Japan hosted the first World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Yokohama, which gave astrong boost to the decade-long activities of disaster risk reduction. In the following year, in 1995, Japan
experienced one of the major urban disasters in recent times: the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake,causing more than $100 billion of direct losses. Over a number of years, the city of Kobe and theprefecture of Hyogo struggled to recover from the physical, social, economic and psychological aspects ofthe disaster. The recovery lessons were widely utilized in other countries.
In the year following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, Japan hosted the second World Conference on
Disaster Reduction, which coincided with the 10th anniversary of the Kobe earthquake. This was the year
when the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) was adopted by United Nations member states as the basic
agreed outline for disaster risk-reduction activities. This is considered the most important recent policy
contribution from Japan to the world in disaster studies.
Now that Japan is trying to cope with the devastating earthquake, tsunami and radiation leakage, theNuclear crisis (now fully accessible)
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question is whether Japan can manage this disaster by itself or needs external support. There are several
discussions and on-line forums which argue that Japan is a developed country that has its own resources

OPINION: Does Japan Need Assistance?

to support the recovery process. I don't agree with this argument. I call it a misconception that has arisen
from a lack of appropriate information. The recovery does not depend on financial resources only. It needs
intellectual resources, plans, policies, strategies and innovative solutions. No country is independent andOPINION: Japan's Coming Nuclear Reassessment
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self-reliant when it comes to its resources. Japan is no exception.
The 2001 Gujarat Earthquake in India also initially threatened the recovery process due to the scale ofthe destruction it caused. The total length of the devastated area was more than 600 kilometers. Unlike
tsunami damage, which is mostly concentrated in coastal areas (more specifically, in a zone within 2-3
kilometers of the coast), the damage caused by the Gujarat Earthquake was spread over a vast area.
The key lesson from the Gujarat Earthquake is the necessity for coordination and proper managementfrom the initial post-disaster phase. The coordination should not be limited to government departments. It
needs to include non-governmental organizations and other relief-based organizations. At the prefecturallevel, a coordination center needs to be set up, which should be a ''one-stop shop'' for information. This
coordination center should be connected horizontally with all relevant departments, as well as verticallywith the national and local governments. One-point coordination is of key importance to avoid confusion
and mismanagement. A sector-based approach is preferable where different sectors such as shelter,
health, education and livelihoods will be handled separately, but under the same coordination unit.
In the current disaster, 54 out of the 174 coastal towns and local governments on the east coast of Japan
were affected by the tsunami. A more severe impact was seen in the case of the Indian Ocean Tsunamiin Sri Lanka, where 73 percent of coastal areas were affected.

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Sri Lanka started a village adoption policy, where different organizations were responsible for the total
recovery of a designated town or local government. A similar approach was also undertaken in Tamil

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Nadu state in India after the 2004 tsunami. The same village adoption principle can be applied to the

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OPINION: Does Japan Need Assistance? | Kyodo News
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current case in Japan, where governments of prefectures that have not been affected and/or nongovernmental organizations can adopt a specific village or town to oversee its holistic recovery. This

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prefectural government or non-governmental organization would be responsible for coordination andcollaboration with other entities.
The arrival time and height of the tsunami in the March 11 disaster raised serious issues with regard tohazard mapping and designated evacuation centers in the coastal areas. Thinking of the aged andvulnerable populations concentrated in the small and medium-sized cities and rural towns in Japan, there
is a strong need for a ''one village, one shelter policy'' to be implemented rigorously in different parts ofJapan, both as a recovery measure and for long-term preparedness. Bangladesh has been a model casefor a coastal early warning system with shelters, volunteers and networking. A similar system is requiredin Japan, both in terms of short-, medium- and long-term recovery.
There are several other emerging issues that need attention in the coming days. Environmental issues,
contamination of soil and water and the impact on the food chain are some of the crucial ones. After
Hurricane Katrina in the United States, the New Orleans government and Environmental Protection
Agency conducted a detailed environmental assessment and found serious issues with regard toJapan quake

industrial waste, debris management and raw sewage, among others. These lessons will be very useful toJapan in the current context.

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Finally, unlike past disasters in Japan, the Tohoku Earthquake has produced more than 250,000
evacuees who need to be relocated outside their hometown or even outside their prefectures. The strong
communities that existed in these rural areas are on the verge of collapse, posing a serious problem interms of human relationships, networking and information flow. The key is how to keep these communities

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together. Sri Lanka has demonstrated some excellent examples of sustainable post-tsunami humanresettlement, which will need to be reflected in Japan too. Different innovative approaches and lessons
were found through single-village relocation or multiple-village relocation (several villages comingRestoration at nuke plant disrupted,radiation fears spread to Tokyo

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together as the same village in a new location), and this needs strategic planning from the inception
phase.
With all these examples and justifications, Japan needs urgent assistance in different sectors, fromvolunteer management, to health risk reduction, to prevention of environmental degradation, massrelocation, shelter management, strategic planning and policy direction, to name but some. Japan is
known for its reserved nature, dignity and modesty. Japan has been generous to support several countries
in different disaster situations, mostly without drawing attention to itself. It is now time to reciprocate that
support and to assist Japan in its time of crisis with non-monetary resources.

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(Rajib Shaw is an associate professor in the laboratory of International Environment and Disaster
Management at Kyoto University's Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies.)==Kyodo

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